Harry Thomas Edwards (born November 3, 1940) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is also a professor of law at the New York University School of Law.NYU School of Law Faculty Profile: Harry T. Edwards. Edwards was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter and served as its chief judge from 1994 to 2001. He assumed senior status in 2005.
Early life and education
Edwards was born on November 3, 1940, in New York City, the oldest of three children born to Arline Ross Edwards and George H. Edwards. His parents were divorced in 1950 and Edwards and his two sisters, Verne Debourg and Pamela Matthews, were raised by their mother. From 1952 to 1953, his mother attended Smith College, where she earned a Master's degree in social work.Emily Cobb, Arlene (sic) Lyle – A Person for People, The Hudsonian (The Official Student Newspaper for Hudson Valley Community College, N.Y.), Feb. 13, 1974, p.3. While his mother was away, Edwards lived with his grandparents,Harry T. Edwards, Personal Reflections on Thirty Years of Legal Education for Minority Students, The University of Michigan Law School, Law Quadrangle Notes (Summer 1994), p.43. in the Harlem section of Manhattan. When his mother returned, the family moved to Long Island, where Edwards attended Uniondale High School and was president of the first graduating class.SIGNATURE, 1958 Yearbook for Uniondale High School, Uniondale, Long Island, New York, p. 55.
Edwards received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in 1962 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 1965. He graduated from law school with distinction and was a member of the Michigan Law Review and the Order of the Coif.Harry T. Edwards, The Journey from Brown v. Board of Education to Grutter v. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation to Diversity, 102 MICH. L. REV. 944, 955 (2004). When he graduated from Michigan, he was the only African American (law student or member of the faculty) in the law school.
During his time in Michigan, Edwards spent time with his father, George H. Edwards, a long-time member of the Michigan House of Representatives;State of Michigan, Michigan Legislature, House Concurrent Resolution No. 924 offered as a Memorial for Mr. George H. Edwards, November 12 & 13, 1980; Paul Finkelman, editor, Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present, from the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century (Oxford Univ Press, 2009), Vol. 1, page 140. his stepmother, Esther Gordy Edwards, a senior vice president at Motown Record Company;Valerie J. Nelson, Esther Gordy Edwards dies at 91; sister of Motown Records founder, Los Angeles Times (August 28, 2011); Detroit News photo gallery 1 and 2; Esther Gordy Edwards Obituary, Legacy.com. and Berry Gordy, Jr., the founder of Motown Record Company.Berry Gordy, Jr. and Harry T. Edwards speaking at the funeral of Esther Gordy Edwards, The Detroit News.
Professional career: 1965–1980
Despite his very strong academic record in law school, Edwards had difficulty finding a job in the legal profession because he was black. Every major law firm to which he applied openly rejected him because of his race.Harry T. Edwards, The Journey from Brown v. Board of Education to Grutter v. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation to Diversity, 102 MICH. L. REV. 944, 955-56 (2004). It was only after Professor Russell Smith, his mentor at Michigan, interceded on his behalf that he was hired at Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson.Harry T. Edwards, Personal Reflections on Thirty Years of Legal Education for Minority Students, The University of Michigan Law School, Law Quadrangle Notes (Summer 1994), p.39. He worked with the firm in Chicago from 1965 to 1970, specializing in labor law and collective bargaining.Four New Professors Join Law School Faculty, 15 L. Quadrangle Notes 2-3 (Fall, 1970).
In 1970, Edwards joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School and became the first African American to teach there.Harry T. Edwards, The Journey from Brown v. Board of Education to Grutter v. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation to Diversity, 102 MICH. L. REV. 944, 956 (2004). His teaching and scholarship focused on labor law, collective bargaining, labor law in the public sector, employment discrimination, arbitration, negotiations, and higher education and the law. In 1974, he and his then-wife Becky, and their children, Brent and Michelle, traveled to Brussels, Belgium, where Edwards was a Visiting Professor of Law at the Free University of Brussels.Harry Edwards Joins Harvard Law Faculty, 20 L. Quadrangle Notes 6 (Spring, 1976). In 1975, Edwards accepted an invitation to visit at Harvard Law School. He was a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School during the 1975–76 school year and then accepted a tenured position on the law school faculty in 1976. While at Harvard, Edwards was also a faculty member at the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard University from 1976 through 1982.Faculty History, University of Michigan Law School; NYU School of Law Faculty Profile: Harry T. Edwards. During this period, he co-authored a book on Higher Education and the Law, which was a major shift in his academic work. In the spring of 1977, Edwards and his family returned to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he rejoined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School. In 1980, Edwards was the co-author of four different casebooks (the only legal scholar in the country at the time to achieve the feat).Harry Edwards Appointed to U.S. Court Post, 24 L. Quadrangle Notes 1 (Winter, 1980).
In 1977, Edwards was nominated by President Carter and confirmed by the Senate to serve on the Board of Directors of Amtrak. He was subsequently elected Chairman by the other members of the Board.Harry Edwards Chairs Board of Amtrak, 24 L. Quadrangle Notes 3-4 (Fall, 1979); Harry T. Edwards, The Journey from Brown v. Board of Education to Grutter v. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation to Diversity, 102 MICH. L. REV. 944, 956 (2004). He resigned his position with Amtrak when he was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. From 1970 until 1980, Edwards served as neutral labor arbitrator on a number of major company and union arbitration panels; he was also Vice President of the National Academy of Arbitrators.
Federal judicial service
When President Carter took office in 1977, among the active federal court of appeals judges, there was only one woman, and only two Black judges.Nancy Scherer; Diversifying the Federal Bench: Is Universal Legitimacy for the U.S. Justice System Possible?, 105 N.W. L. Rev. 587 (2011); Mary Clark, Carter's Groundbreaking Appointment of Women to the Federal Bench: His Other "Human Rights" Record, Association of American Law Schools (2003). To address this situation, the President established merit selection panels to identify and recommend highly qualified female and minority attorneys for appointment to the federal bench.National Center for State Courts, Federal Judicial Selection – Federal Judicial Nominating Commissions . In 1979, the judicial selection panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sent nine names to then-Attorney General Griffin Bell. From that list, President Carter nominated Patricia Wald,Judicial Portraits – U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Patricia McGowan Wald. Abner Mikva,Judicial Portraits – U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Abner J. Mikva; Oral History of Hon. Abner J. Mikva; Dissenting Opinion, The University of Chicago Magazine (August 1996). and Edwards to serve on the court. Ruth Bader GinsburgJudicial Portraits – U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. was later nominated when an additional opening arose on the D.C. Circuit. Edwards was nominated by the President on December 6, 1979, to a seat vacated by Judge David L. Bazelon, and confirmed by the United States Senate on February 20, 1980, and he received his judicial commission on February 20, 1980. He was 39 years old when he joined the court, reputedly the youngest federal court of appeals judge sitting at the time.
Edwards served as chief judge from the fall of 1994 until July 2001. During his nearly seven years as chief judge of the D.C. Circuit, Edwards directed numerous IT initiatives at the D.C. Circuit;William K. Olivier, An Interview with Judge Harry T. Edwards, 49 JUDGES' J. 4 (Summer 2010). oversaw a complete reorganization of the Clerk's Office and Legal Division; implemented case management programs that helped to cut the court's case backlog and reduce case disposition times; successfully pursued congressional support for the construction of the William B. Bryant Annex to the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse; presided over the court's hearings in United States v. Microsoft; established programs to enhance communications with the lawyers who practice before the court; and received high praise from members of the bench, bar, and press for fostering collegial relations among the members of the court.Lily Henning, The Edwards Treatment, Legal Times (Nov. 21, 2005); Personal Profile: J. Groner, Chiefly, Edwards Is A Calming Influence, Legal Times, Week of July 8, 1996, Vol. xix, No. 8, at p.1; Personal Profile: J. Groner, Don't Fence Him In, The American Lawyer, July/August 1996, at p. 39. He assumed senior status on November 3, 2005.
Law teaching and scholarship since 1980
Since 1980, Edwards has taught at a number of law schools, including Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. He is presently a professor of law at the NYU School of Law, where he has taught since 1990. In 2010, he was the C.V. Starr Distinguished Jurist in Residence at the Peking University School of Transnational Law, Shenzhen, China. He is the coauthor of five books. His most recent book is Edwards & Elliott, Federal Standards of Review (3d ed. 2018).
One of his most significant publications, "The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession", 91 Mich. L. Rev. 34 (1992), has been the source of extensive comment, discussion, and debate among legal scholars and practitioners. The article has been recognized as "one of the most-cited law review articles of all time."Fred R. Shapiro & Michelle Pearse, The Most-Cited Law Review Articles of All Time, 110 MICH. L. REV. 1483, 1492, 1493, 1501 (2012). Three other articles, "Collegial Decision Making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals" (July 2017);Harry T. Edwards, Collegial Decision Making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals, NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 17-47 (November 15, 2017). Edwards & Livermore, "The Pitfalls of Empirical Studies That Attempt to Understand the Factors Affecting Appellate Decisionmaking", 58 Duke L.J.1895 (2009); and "The Effects of Collegiality on Judicial Decision Making", 151 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1639 (May 2003), explain how appellate judges decide cases and refute the claim that the personal ideologies and political leanings of court of appeals judges are crucial determinants in their decision-making.